


A Teddy-Bear-Shaped Problem

by surrexi



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrexi/pseuds/surrexi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor has a problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Teddy-Bear-Shaped Problem

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2007 Secret Santa over at oh_she_knows on LJ, for hotarus_sister. She asked for Ten/Rose with a prompt of "teddy bear," and this is what popped into my head almost immediately. Beta'd by Nikki (unbrokensky@lj).

The Doctor had a problem. A teddy-bear-shaped problem, to be exact.

It all came down to Donna, he decided. She’d been brilliant to travel with, she really had, and if she hadn’t been just what he needed to break out of his funk and get back to being the Doctor, he’d eat his trainers. After all, if she hadn’t snapped him back into himself, he might never have been able to formulate the brilliant plan that had led to his rescue of Rose from the parallel world the day before, and that would have been terrible.

But as the Doctor scrambled around the console room whilst Rose remained sleeping in their bed in his room, he began to wish that Donna hadn’t chosen the particular method on which she’d settled.

They’d been between adventures, taking a pit stop in Cardiff, and the Doctor had been sitting in the kitchen enjoying a cup of tea. All right, he admitted to himself as he rummaged around under the console, he’d been moping. Moping and drinking tea. Well, moping and drinking tea and thinking about Rose. Which really went hand in hand with the moping when push came to shove. Then Donna had come blazing in, having just popped out of the TARDIS _claiming_ to be off to have tea with Jack and Martha in the Torchwood hub. She sat down across from him and snapped her fingers in front of his face.

“All right then, I’ve had enough of this,” she’d said briskly. “No more moping into your tea!” She’d reached into a shopping bag and pulled out a medium-sized teddy bear, which she then dropped on the table next to his teacup. “Until you find a way to get her back — and something tells me you will, so just shut it, Martian boy — this is Rose. When you miss Rose, hold the bear. When you wish you could talk to her, talk to the bear. When you’re so sad you could burst, cry into the bear. Because you could damn well use the outlet.”

Without another word, she’d got to her feet and left him alone in the kitchen with the teddy bear. At first, the Doctor had found the suggestion a little on the absurd side, even for him, and the bear had been banished to the end of the Doctor’s bed. But little by little, he’d begun to follow Donna’s advice. And to give the devil her due, it had worked. By the time Donna had chosen to leave the TARDIS, the Doctor’s plans for rescuing Rose were nearing completion and he almost never moped into his tea.

He had also developed a tendency to tote the bear around the TARDIS with him, like a little piece of Rose to match the one he kept in his hearts. As such, any given day could find the bear sitting on the captain’s bench in the console room, perched on the teapot in the kitchen, tucked into his bed, sitting on a cushy armchair in the library, or in any number of other places.

Normally, this did not present a problem. But in all the preparations for Rose’s rescue, the Doctor had quite forgotten to locate the bear and put her in a secure location — by which he of course meant “a place where Rose wouldn’t find her, because it would be far too embarrassing to explain.”

And now, Rose was back in the TARDIS and the Doctor could not find her teddy bear counterpart. He had woken in his room, Rose in his arms and feeling on top of the world, when it occurred to him that having her in his bed was infinitely preferable to having the teddy bear. It then occurred to him that he was not altogether sure where his Rose-bear _was_. This thought led to his tiptoeing out of the room so as not to wake the real Rose, followed by frantic searching through the kitchen, the conservatory, the library, and even the wardrobe (though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in there).

Now he pushed himself out from under the TARDIS console, where there was no teddy bear to be found, and contemplated whether or not Rose would be sound enough asleep when he returned to his room that he could search _it_ for the bear and, if he found her, hide her before Rose woke up. He stood up and was about to turn around when an arm slid around his waist from behind and warm lips pressed against the nape of his neck where hair gave way to skin.

He shivered slightly in response and turned around to look into Rose’s sparkling eyes. “Hello,” he said with a smile.

“Hello,” she replied, smiling in return. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“Well, you kept me up for quite a bit.” He gave an exaggerated wink, making her laugh. “But yeah, I did, actually. Woke up and didn’t want to wake you ‘cause you looked so peaceful. And I thought you’d probably need the rest.” He grinned cheekily.

“Oh, you think you’re so impressive.”

The Doctor leaned down and captured her mouth in a slow, quiet kiss. He lingered over it for a moment or two, then pulled back and looked at Rose expectantly.

“Okay,” she admitted, licking her lips and tasting the Doctor. “You are so impressive.” The Doctor preened a little, grinning proudly until he noticed that a mischievous glint had come into Rose’s eyes, and she was smiling that smile where her tongue poked out from between her teeth. Delectable as it was, he thought, that smile usually meant trouble of one form or another. He prepared himself for the worst.

“Of course,” Rose said, “the impressiveness fades a little when one discovers that the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm _himself_ …” she paused and pulled his teddy bear out from behind her back, “sleeps with a teddy bear.”

 _Oh, Rassilon._


End file.
